Well I am lucky and privileged enough to have once been in my life to Egypt. And more privileged to have left the succor of the tourist busses. And yet still lolled in ridiculous luxuries at whatever that hotel with the pool overlooking the pyramids is, and in Sharm el Sheikh. And am further luxuried to have some western perspective on Egypt's cultural and political history, including western imperialism. Which is apparently more than most of the US media is privy to. Assuming they could afford to have staff in Egypt.
Which they can't. Cause Palin. And the Tea Party. And Arizona. Cause they closed all the foreign bureaus a few years back and just bought the AP feed. Which doesn't have much of anything on Egypt. It's AJ all day all night, Al Jazeera to those who still don't trust the AyRabs to use cameras that aren't bombs to promote news that isn't terrorism. The UK's Guardian has been rocking the western coverage on Egypt, got one of their reporters beaten and arrested, and the journalist had the pure grit to run interviews in the detention van, and then break out with the rest of them and run away, after making sure the asthma/diabetes/whatever victim incarcerated with them got put in a taxi for the hospital.
That guy did an interview bloodstained and brutalized, and still yet he was living the luxury of being a foreigner. Where was the US media? No fing where, altho after Tunisia it was easy and obvious that Egypt was in play. I could have flown to Cairo with a video camera and a press pass and gotten more footage there in the last 24 hours than the US media has yet. And i could have spoken more assertively for freedom and democracy there than the US has yet.
So here's what I love and hate right now:
I love that women were a dominant demographic in the Egypt protests, and I want them back in play:
http://www.doublex.com/...
I hate that the US official position (as communicated by the State Dept) has only now shifted to asserting concern and sympathy for individual freedoms from politicial repression and violence.
I love that this arose so spontaneously from local issues that the US media still is just barely getting their heads around it.
I hate that that means the US is about 3 generations away from actually getting it, starting with the heretical concept that the Muslim Brotherhood may not be part of a massive Islamist/Socialist/Communist/Terrorist That Is Out To Smash Their FlatScreens and Make Their Daughters Pay For Abortions.
I love that there are people both brave and angry enough in Egypt to fight walls of cops, to bend down and pray in front of enemies with weapons, to pick up tear gas canisters and throw them back at their oppressors, to stand in front of death machines, and shake and rock and knock them down, and yet make friends with the enemies from a few minutes previous, and share water and stories and sympathy with them.
I hate that I can't imagine this happening in the US or Canada.
I love that I can with a few clicks watch this all happen. I hate that I have joined a realm where I'm perfectly happy just watching scenarios like this play out while I click refresh, without ever opening my mouth or raising my voice.
I love that Egypt has been waiting for justice for a few decades now and is taking it for itself. I love that I can trust from US incompetence that they have no idea of what's going on, and therefore were likely not a deliberate catalyst.
I hate that it took so long, and that the US was not a deliberate catalyst.
I hate that I had to describe to a friend "Prague Spring". I loved that it took about 13 seconds for him to pull it up on his phone.
And I love and hate a lot more on this topic but hell, should we not we hear from you first, gentle reader?